There are lots of reasons for wanting to work from home or make money online.

One of my main personal reasons for wanting to be self-employed is from an incident that is very personal to me. Something happened while I was in high school that made a profound impression on my life and what I want to do for employment.

I will be naming the company involved. However, if I could remember some of those who were supposed to be leaders of the respective parties involved, I would. I have little respect for those involved on both sides. While the company, and those in charge of it, I feel is worthy of my disdain, I believe the leaders of the opposing side are also self-serving scumbags.

I will also be naming a well known national politician that also tried to use the situation for his own personal advancement.

I hope that those of you who are probably thinking of supporting the presidential nominee his party will be proposing this fall will take notice. Nearly all the promises (or even day to day statements) made by any politician of his party are not only the same, but made with the same self-serving interests at heart. It makes my stomach retch every time I hear these people talk.

Now, on to the story that drives me to be self-employed.

While I was growing up, my father worked for the Patrick Cudahy meat processing company.

That is the company involved. My father worked as a foreman. He was a dedicated employee. He had an excellent attendance record. He had even received several mugs for perfect attendance. The only time I remember him needing to miss any work was when he had needed an operation on his thumb. The operation was to fix a nerve in his thumb which had been cut with a blade at Patrick Cudahy. As a foreman, my dad was sometimes not paid as much as the union workers he was overseeing.

Before I get nasty, I must tell you that I have no complaints with union workers in general.

My Grandfather was a union worker at Patrick Cudahy before my dad worked there. We had many personal friends that worked for the union at Patrick Cudahy. They were hard working folks that were trying to provide for their families. At the same time, my dad needed to work extra hard as some workers did not earn their pay and he was responsible to see the work was done. But not even that is the cause of the situation.

Back in the 80′s, the union and the company started to have some major disagreements.

There were a few small, short strikes but during my senior year at high school things got really out of control. The union leaders claimed they needed more. The company was really beginning to threaten to simple close the plant and move. The city of Cudahy is named after Patrick Cudahy just like the company.

A long strike began.

During this strike, I even went through the strike lines a few times to pick up my dad from work. Why they feel the need for strike workers to march around a Mazda GLC at 10:00pm at night as you enter and leave is beyond me. I really wondered how intelligent the strikers were calling anyone going through a “Scab” when they called me one and I was not doing much more than the bus driver down the street. That is one of the better terms they used. Of course, some of these honest workers had been throwing rocks and eggs at vehicles going through at times.

I have not gotten to the ugly part of the situation yet.

The union leaders were really good at convincing their workers how “unfair” their wages and benefits were. The company was the great evil capitalist and they should let themselves be taken advantage of. So, the workers striked. For months. For a strike pay in the tens of dollars per week. Probably close to an hour or two’s wages. This went on for months. I can see why they would be grouchy on the picket line. I still don’t understand how they think this was helping them.

During this time, the union leadership really failed to represent them.

There were several meetings where the union leaders failed to show up at all. I wish I could remember the moron’s name. I guess he was just to busy making a slide show he was supposed to be creating on the Civil War or something else to represent those guys on the picket line properly. Maybe, he didn’t really feel that he had any responsibility to do his best for them. His failure to show alone added weeks to the strike.

For those union supporters out there, stick around, I’ll get to the company also.

I have noticed a real lack of responsibility for the workers by a lot of union leadership in this country. So many times,  you see union workers forced to strike by the union for nothing that will profit them. More often than not, I see union leadership just increasing its own control of power. I have my own beefs about how Wal-Mart does business, but the hypocrisy of the way the unions hire picketers is almost comical. Union leaders are very much guilty of convincing workers to strike for reasons that mostly profit union leaders and increase their control over the workers. Union workers nearly always seem to lose far more than they gain. Kinda like voting for a politician that is going to tax “the rich” and give the money to “help the poor and needy.” It is all for the better good of all.

That brings us to none other than the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Yes, he was trying to be nominated for president at this time. The Reverend Jesse Jackson came to show his support for the union strike. He even came to one striker’s home. Now, I do remember this workers name and am not going to give it out. Nice guy, but he really fell for Jesse Jackson’s speil. The man was a very active union supporter and was sure in the rightness of his cause and the strike. For those who listen to those who are always ready to hold out and keep a strike going longer just to let the company know who is in charge, this man had a successful side business. A business that, by the way, was at least partially enhanced by government grants. He could afford to strike a bit and still by fun toys like new cameras while some of our personal friends were having problems with groceries.

Back to the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

I despise politicians that make claims about how  “unfair” businesses are to workers. Jesse Jackson came to town for a day or two made his speeches for the media and left. I doubt he even remembers how to pronounce Cudahy (cud-a-hay). It was simply a chance for him to claim he was supporting union workers. It is the same story with nearly (but not entirely) all the members his party. Claims to provide more education, health care, fair income, equal rights, save the environment, legal justice, lower crime, and even rights to free speech almost always means that they end up with more control and you end up with less control, money, rights and freedom. Sexual harassment is terrible, but not if it is Bill Clinton. We need socialized health care, but Hillary’s last plan excluded much of those in government while giving us no choice (I believe her current plan is not too different). The environment need to be saved, but don’t inconvenience Al Gore’s luggage or think that his mansion uses too much electricity while the rest of us are forced to use CFL bulbs. Then again, there is Obama’s house (both the empty lot and the interesting loan) and his wife’s Ivy league education and cushy legal profession and claims of how terrible life is the United States (all OK now that her husband is near nomination). Jesse and all his kind always make these claims, but they never seem to pay the price they want the rest of us to.

If I haven’t made an enemy of you yet, just wait.

In a long strike like the one that occurred at Patrick Cudahy, no one really wins. Everyone loses.

When it ended, the union did not gain much if anything. Most of those that needed the job most had need to find another job to make ends meet. Some needed to move to other parts of the country. The company soon moved many of the jobs out anyway. Some out of the country. The plant ended up having a fraction of the jobs it used to have. The jobs were lost to the community along with the income they provided.

The City of Cudahy is a ghost of what it used to be.

The strip mall that used to have a Gimble’s, JCPenny, and a Sears. Now it has a dollar store and discount liquidator. Many of the once thriving small businesses down the main street are gone. I watched two resale shops fail in one year near our business. The bakery they replaced had been there all my life. Where there were local owned shops, national chain stores now take the profits elsewhere. Not even the Kmart is doing well.

I have given you a reason why I might not want to work with a union, now for the company.

I’m sure you union people will like this.

Like I said, my dad was a foreman for the company. He worked just as hard or harder than anyone that was in the union. He endured the picket lines, and even  the slight danger passing through them (the local police also belong to unions, adding someone else for me to anger with this post).

He worked all through the strike. I mentioned picking him up during the strike, passing the picket lines. For all this, and his years of loyalty, he was shortly rewarded.

A few months after the strike ended, my dad came home and told us his job had been terminated.

Just like that. I still do not understand a company that would do this even as they were still claiming the strikers were welcome back. But Patrick Cudahy was not done yet.

A year later, they offered to hire my dad back at minimum wage as a security guard!

To me, this was a real insult. Oh yes, we fired a loyal employee like you a year ago. However, if you want, we will hire you at a fraction of what you used to make. Honesty, my dad was tempted because it did include heath insurance.

I have no respect for Patrick Cudahy or the jerks that run it. So now, I will let the rest of the world something that will make them sick.

I was once in the plant a few years later, I witnessed something that should make you a bit sick next time you eat ham or bacon from them.

*I have decided to remove the incident, besides, I still like Patrick Cudahy ham.*

I will do all I can to never be reliant on someone else for my income.

While I may have a job from time to time, my goal is a steady income I can rely on working for myself. I don’t want to be at the mercy of self-serving union leaders. I do not believe there is job security from working for a company any more. I most of all do not want politicans deciding how much I should be making and deciding how to spend my money to buy themselves votes and power with it.

I want to create my own wealth.

I’ll make money online or make money offline with a home-based business. I don’t care. I’ll find a way to be successful and help as many others become successful too. I believe that wealth can be shared with as many as want to create it. The only ones that steal wealth are those that think it is a limited commodity.

No matter what you do, you have some investment in business.

Are you investing smartly?

I wrote this post after having someone literally hang up on me as I mentioned that there would be a financial investment in starting a business.

I didn’t even get to the numbers before the line went dead. What kind of mindset does a person have with no plans to invest in their own business at all? In fact, the numbers I would have told her are almost ridiculously low and even refundable, but just the mention of money turned her off. This is someone who asked for information about from home because she could no longer do her former work due to a back operation that work had caused. She had risked her time and health and lost. She will lose more because she has not learned be informed before making her decision. Any financial investment or even risk would be small compared to what she already risked and lost.

Even if you are working a traditional job, you are invested in it and you have risk.

You invest your time. Your pay is the reward for the investment of your time. You also have a risk with that investment. Your risks could actually be just as much as a stockholder of the company you work for. After all, if the company fails, you lose your income. A stockholder loses money only if he invests in stock that is overpriced or if the company fails. Your investment of time is also at risk of the whim of your boss firing you, or you becoming unable to fulfil your job duties. Maybe, this make the risk of a traditional job holder even greater than that of a stockholder.

The investment in an online business or a home business can be very low, yet many don’t want to invest.

Starting a website or blog can cost as little as a domain and hosting for a year. That would an investment of well under $150. You may need to invest in some software or training. That may mean an investment of money or an investment of time. After that, much of your investment may be time. Again, you will be investing time in the business. The financial investment is low but the time investment can be high. The risk is dependent on your ability to succeed. Risking $500 or even $1000 total to start an online business is not a large investment. It is a small percentage of what a traditional brick and mortar business would cost. You would most likely pay $1000 for a month’s rent just as a start.

Yet, I see so many who are willing to risk the time investment but completely unwilling to risk any monetary investment even a small one.

In the long run, I see this as a setup for losing much of the investment in time. A domain name is cheap. Often less than $10 a year from GoDaddy or Namecheap (I use Namecheap now for most domain names). Yet, so many start a blog without a domain. I fail to see why this is a step so many skip. Meanwhile, domainers are out there just investing in domain names alone for their potential value in a few years.

I find that many people think that there is money to be made with no financial investment.

There is. It is called a job. I already talked about your risk a little bit. Your job comes with perks like a boss and workers you cannot stand, following the same rat race every day, and the knowledge that job security doesn’t exist like it did for your grandfather.

So many people refuse to make any financial investment in themselves.

They seem to be afraid they will get scammed or ripped off. It is true there are many scams. There are many ideas for making money that require you to invest money in them that do not work. I think a lot of the eBay businesses and online store products are a bad way to invest your money in an online business. Why? Simple. They want you to sell the same piece of junk that 10,000 other people are selling and it’s junk no one really uses anyway. So, yes, there are bad ways to invest your money to build a business.

The point is to make a wise, informed decision on what to invest in and how much of an investment is needed.

Buying a McDonald’s franchise can be a wise investment, but it is a significant financial investment. Few of us have the spare million dollars that would take. Not to mention, you are also going to have a significant time investment in that McDonald’s. There are other businesses that have a very low financial investment and can make you just as much money.

I am not saying you should not be skeptical.

You should be informed before you invest. You should make a wise decision. Just do not let the fact that it may cost a little bit and have a tiny financial risk be the reason.

Sometimes, that financial investment is the motivation to use the time investment wisely.

Well, almost!

Friday was the last official day in my full time business (the portrait studio).

I am now completely self-employed. Or, to put it another way, unemployed.

This is a big change for me.

I have been in the business for my entire adult life. After well over twenty years, it is a bit sad to see it go. My parents started the business while I was in high school. It has been a real education in retail, sales, marketing, as well as photography.

If everything works out, I will be working completely from home from now on.

There are several things I will be doing.

My Websites.

I will be concentrating on this blog and on my photography site for the most part. I also plan to start a few more sites. I have seen some interesting ideas recently and I want to give a few of them a try. Still, most of my focus in Internet Marketing will be centered around this blog and the photography blog.

I will also be doing another home-based business.

This will probably be the long term focus for income. I just have to make up my mind and do it.

I am planning to see what I can do with photography.

For a few months at least, I am staying well away from portrait photography. I look into doing it again sometime in the future, but for now I will look into other types of photography. Besides, I do not have a studio now and it is not very good weather to do portraits outdoors here in Wisconsin. In particular, I intend to develop my stock portfolio a bit for the next couple months.

We may have kept the studio open if we had the business we have had the last few weeks last year.

Why is it once you decide to close, customers seem to come out of the woodwork? My last week in business was probably the largest single week we have had in several years. I had to turn away many potential clients. There was no time to get them in before our lease was up.

I still have some work to do at the studio over the next few weeks.

Our landlord was very kind and has given us the month of December to clean up. After 20 years, we have a lot of things that either need to be sold or thrown out.

Lessons to learn.

Watch the industry you are in. Take notice of changes and make sure you change with them, when the time is right.

Do not change too early.

Sometimes, the early adopters pay a lethal price. Often, early generations of technology have serious flaws.

Do not change too late.

Failure to change will leave you too far behind to catch up. Our failure was not shutting down our film lab soon enough. It was actually costing us money to keep the equipment running.

Marketing your business is the real business.

Everything else is secondary. Make sure your marketing is designed to bring you business, not just get noticed. You are better off sending 3 letters to 10 clients than 1 letter to 30 clients. Also, always be ready to repeat a last successful marketing campaign. Don’t put all your cards on a new method till you see results.

Finally, and probably most important.

Your list is worth it’s weight in gold.

BACK IT UP!

Blogging Zoom and ScratchBack, the wave of the future?

After several weeks with BlogRush, I am going to let it go in a couple days.

BlogRush has actually done better for me than I thought it would. However, that is not good enough. It has been a net positive gain in visitors versus those leaving by the widget. I have not complaints. It has brought a few visitors.

I seem to be getting less traffic even though I am giving more pageviews to the widget.

BlogRush actually seemed to work better for me before the quality improvement a bit ago.

I wonder if it was because visitors on poor quality sites were looking for somewhere else to visit? Either way, visitors from BlogRush since have been even less. Very few visitors that I know of have left here through BlogRush.

Would I recommend BlogRush to others?

Maybe. It does add another method to getting visitors to your site. It does not require any effort on your part. It is free. You can even leverage your traffic when other blogs sign up under you. It is not a bad deal.

The reason I am removing it is I want to use the space for something else.

There are more productive uses of the space. Even a larger MyBlogLog widget seems would be more productive. I do get more traffic from MyBlogLog than BlogRush. I am contemplating another widget and I think it is getting a bit crowded. So, BlogRush goes because it has not proven to be a performer.

3 Readers with over 14,000 syndications?

If you really want traffic, spend a bit of time with Blogging Zoom.

Blogging Zoom takes more work, but sends infinitely more traffic. Don’t forget to Zoom this post if you find it useful. *Update-Blogging Zoom is no longer and the domain is used for something else.*

What About Text Link Ads?

I am going to be telling them I do not want new TLA ads after the currently paid ones have ended.

As opposed to BlogRush, Text Link Ads has been a performer.

I have made many times more money with Text Link Ads on this site than I have with AdSense. I really hate to say goodbye to them. I have nothing but good things to say about TLA as a source of income. It is every bit as good as it claims to be for the blogger.

Everyone knows the situation with Google and paid links.

I really feel the situation is unfair. Not only to TLA but to bloggers. I do not like the idea of being told what to do with my site. I sincerely hope TLA continues to create new services that bloggers can work with.

I am replacing Text Link Ads with ScratchBack.

The widget in the sidebar that says Top Links is the ScratchBack ad. This system uses nofollow so Google can’t complain. I also realize that a nofollow link is not as valuable as one that does not have nofollow tagged to it. In other words, I won’t make as much money because the links are not worth as much.

Right now, the cost of a ScratchBack ad on this blog is $1.00.

When the 10 link spots are filled, they begin to bump off the older links. Once the 10 spots are close to being filled, I will raising the price. Once filled, I will raise the price again. I will be doing this to give value to those who have already paid for a link. When (not if) the cost of a link gets close to the price that TLA charged for a link, I will switch from bump off to a monthly or bi-weekly pay for the links.

Why would you want to pay for a nofollow link?

Because I will be working hard to have good content that brings traffic to the site. That traffic should bring traffic to your link.

Why use Scratchback instead of doing it myself?

It would be easy to set up something like this just by doing the links myself. ScratchBack does take care of the maintenance end of it. They will also make you a custom widget if you want them to right now. I am using them mostly because it looks nice. They are working on a marketplace that should help get more buyers.

Note that ScratchBack considers it a tip and I retain editorial control.

If I reject your link, you still pay. If there is any question about if your link might be rejected, contact me before you pay. I will let you know if I would reject the link before you pay. But hey, it’s only a $1.00 anyways right now. You can get your own widget at the ScratchBack site.

I can honestly say PageRank is not the reason I am not going to be using Text Link Ads.

If it were just the PageRank from Google, I would probably stay with TLA. It is profitable.

The real reason I will stop having paid links on the site will be the subject of my next post.

If you are not subscribed to my feed, subscribe now. My next post may surprise you. It may scare you. You do not want to miss it.

Has the Google-slap had it’s intended effect already?

The Text Link Ads calculator seems to be showing some very interesting results now.

If you were thinking of using TLA on your site, they had a calculator that could tell you what you might expect to make on your site. It would calculate what you would make depending on how many ads you wished to run.

It seems that TLA is now telling us that you won’t make any money with them anymore.

The calculator now gives some very odd results.

Where you used to get a $ figure, you will now get one of several results.
While they might have been comical, they show the effect of the Google-slap on it’s competition. The paid link market has crashed.

Here are some screenshots from the calculator.

I am not sure when TLA made these changes to the calculator, but it sure shows the market since the Google-slap.

DigitalKeyTo.info’s calculation:

How about John Chow’s site?

Same result. It is not just my site-it is the paid links.

Here are two more results you will get:

I find it sad to see this.

Text Link Ads has been a favorite advertiser for many blogs. It provided an excellent option to AdSense. It gave a consistent income that could be fairly reliable as long as you had the Alexa ranking needed to attract advertisers.

You can also see for yourself at the Text Link Ads site.

The link ad calculator is here.

It looks like Google has accomplished it’s goal of crushing their competitor.

Perhaps TLA’s parent company saw this coming when they purchased AuctionAds.com. At the very least, it was a wise decision on their part to add another income stream.

I think having a second plan in line is a good idea for anyone.

The good news is that there are some new alternatives coming up for bloggers and Internet Marketers.

If you find this post useful, why not zoom it at Blogging Zoom? Also, subscribe to my RSS feed. RSS is the best way to keep track of my posts.

Will your income survive?

Wendy Piersall at eMoms at Home had a bit of a weather trouble.

That’s probably an understatement. It is good that not much harm was done.

Yep, you read that right.

I’m holed up in a hotel right now because a small tornado touched down in my neighborhood on Thursday. Although a few people had some injuries in my town, for the most part everyone is OK, thank goodness.

Source: Tornado + No Electricity = Grumpy eMom – eMoms at Home – The Internet Home Business Blog for Moms & Dads

What would happen to your income in a situation where you couldn’t do business as usual?

For most people, weather bad enough to close their place of employment means they have no income. Basically, if you get paid by the hour if and you can’t put in an hours worth of time, you can’t get paid.

What if you’re self-employed?

Obviously if your place of business is your home, and your home is damaged due to weather, you’re in even more serious trouble. Most likely, for some period of time, your income probably isn’t going to cross your mind. Eventually, you will realize that you need to start worrying about your business.

As an online business safer?

Some are. Many online businesses to not require you to be there every day. However, some can lose quite a bit of money without daily upkeep. You may be able to go for a few days or even weeks. However in many cases, if someone’s not there your income will start to decline. That’s why we see so many guest bloggers during the summer. Bloggers know that if there are not daily posts to their site even when they want a vacation, traffic can quickly disappear.

Maybe you can run your online business from a laptop?

That’s great. Hopefully your laptop is safe with you. Are you able to get somewhere where you can use it. You need two things: power and an Internet connection. There are cases where you may not be able to obtain either one. While something localized like a tornado may allow you to find what you need reasonably close, larger weather problems like a blizzard or hurricane may mean travel is not possible.

Of course, you can’t really move a brick-and-mortar business.

I once had a similar situation to Wendy with a tornado. While our business suffered no damage, we had no electricity for several days. Forget things like electric cash registers and computers. Just lights to see in the building were a concern. We were fortunate when a customer offered us use of his power generator for a few days. While we were not able to do any real work, at least we could find our customer’s orders in the computer.

There are other things besides weather that can put you temporarily out of business.

In some cases being out of business temporarily can put you out of business permanently. Let’s face it, many businesses and most individuals have very little of a safety net. If we don’t work, we don’t get paid, and we can’t pay our bills.

It’s called linear income.

If you don’t work, you have no income. If you do work, we have an income (at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work). You may have something saved as a backup for the proverbial rainy day. Many do not.

There are businesses that provide a residual income.

A residual income is an income that you continue to get paid in the future for work you do today. Residual income is not that easy to find though. Most of the time and we think a residual income you think of the author of a book, the movie industry, and maybe the music industry. These people do the work and then continue to see income whenever their work is read, viewed, or listened to. Still, in most cases their income stream tends to die out after time. Eventually, everyone who is interested in their work has already purchased it.

There are some other industries that have residual income.

There are some cases where a one-time sale can create a long-term income. In some cases, a cell phone dealer may continue to make a commission on your monthly charges as long as you stay with his plan. The insurance industry may provide one of the best forms of residual income. Your insurance agent continues to get paid every time you pay your insurance bill. However, many insurance companies are making that a little more difficult.

Still, a residual income is something to really look for.

It’s the one type of income that can take a little bit of stress off your shoulders when life happens. When you know your income will still be there, you can concentrate on what matters most at the moment. That’s something that’s really worth looking for.

So why don’t we all have a residual income?

Honestly, because most people won’t work for future reward. Work now, get paid later, does not sound as good as work now, get paid now. It’s the lure of quick money. It’s not so much greed, but instant gratification and current needs vs. future plans.

Also, there is a lot of fake residual income out there.

The idea of residual income is what makes so many people look at multilevel marketing. Yet, for many reasons, almost nobody finds residual income at multilevel marketing. It’s why so many people who start multilevel marketing companies, have also started many multilevel marketing companies. There’s no real residual income. Just a quick buck for a few lucky ones and onto something new.

Do you have a plan B?

Do you have a backup plan? It’s considered wise to have a few days of food and water and other necessities in case of some disaster. Do you have a disaster plan for your income? It could be weather or it could be a social or economic disaster. It could be local or it could be regional. Would your income survive?

Last Good Friday (2005), we were really forced to change our business

Since it is Good Friday and since the I only have the link to my portrait studio up so far, I think I’ll describe how my business in photography had changed. I’ll also talk a bit about the changes in photography in general a bit. Back in 1984, my father opened a 1hr film processing lab as a family business. He had seen a newspaper add about the business. It was just a small local business in a very tiny shop located on the main street in Cudahy, WI.

Photography was very different then

When we opened we really had no competition in the area. At the time, the nearest 1hr processor was at a mall about 15-20 minutes away. Drug stores took over a week for film, as did the camera stores. It seemed like a great business to start, and besides, I had kinda always wanted to be in photography too.

In order to increase the profits, we added framing, enlargements, and a portrait studio

By the beginning of the 1990′s business was actually pretty good. There was lots of film to develop. The portrait studio, while we were not able to do everything a full studio could, was very successful.

By the end of the 1990′s things were starting to change

I think the first change was the failed attempt in the industry to introduce the APS film format. It really was a bad idea. Small labs like us had to decide if it was worth upgrading to handle the format, as much as $30,000. In truth, APS really was close to the old 110 format in quality (little better but not much). We did not and it was a good choice since there never was much demand.

Soon the industry started to talk about digital

The first digital cameras were really bad. I know many people that purchased early digital cameras and were very disappointed with them. I think companies were overly optimistic about the quality. Also, the industry had not really thought out what anyone would do with the photos they got.

Then came the drug stores

Soon, every drug store in the area started to do 1 hr. film. They even built new drug stores. Discount stores also added labs. These companies sell processing at cost to bring business into their stores. Its hard to compete on a service you rely on for income when your competition is not even trying to make money on it. Our better quality kept many of our customers but our volume started to drop.

Since we saw the film processing business eventually ending, I started trying to improve the studio

We knew eventually we would end the 1 hr. business. But last Good Friday (2005) we finally had no choice.

On Good Friday 2005 our lab (the main printing machine) went up in smoke – literally.

We were told it was not repairable (after they charged us $1000 in attempting to). New machines would have cost $100,000 to $250,000. With the cost of digital prints falling (even then only $.25) we decided new equipment would never pay for itself with the volume we could see us doing. How many $.18 prints would you have to do to pay for a machine that cost that much? We knew the end had been coming. I just wish we had a little warning.

Since then, we have really only been doing portraits and framing

I am glad we had been planning to turn to something else. It has been a bit of a struggle to redesign the entire business plan. We are still working on the change. I have seen many other labs go completely out of business. In our area, there are only two independent labs left. The drug and discount stores have taken too much of the market by competing for the lowest price. That, combined with the huge changes in technology, has changed the entire photography business.

Even the big companies are having problems

Within the last year, Agfa and Konica-Minolta, both equipment makers and paper-chemical suppliers, have gotten out of the market. Agfa went bust. Konica-Minolta just decided to leave that end of the business. There are so many changes happening that trade magazines are usually announcing new products from companies that are no longer in the market.

With all this, I am more excited about photography than I was 10 years ago

I am more confident and excited about my portrait photography than ever before. I am hoping that these changes in my work will actually be for the better in the long run.

How about you?

Have you had a huge change in your business? Has technology changed your industry in a short period of time. Have you had a catastrophic change in your business and been able to overcome it?

I’d like to hear about it. Or, share with us how photography has changed to you.

How to generate an income on the internet?

Several years ago, I came across the Google Cash system. I shared a couple emails with Chris Carpenter the author but I did not purchase his system at that time. I did like his idea. I think it may be a good one, but I was busy with other things.

For the first time though, I thought about the internet as something you could make a little money on.

I had previously not ever really considered the possility to generate income on the internet (unless I wanted to spend my life in line at UPS sending packages from an online store or Ebay). Maybe I should have invested in Google at the time?

I realize it will be a while before anyone finds this blog but I hope others will be willing to discuss the many different ways to make an income on the web.

I don’t mean to limit this blog (at least for now) to any particular subject. In fact we can go with just about any comments you care to leave.